Unfortunately, the local police are gettin' hung up on definitions when choosing to report or not report sex crimes as rape.

For cryin' out loud folks, we're not discussin' art.

Or pornography. The "I'll know it when I see it" reasoning doesn't apply to the act of violating another person against their will.

Doctoring crime statistics to make your city appear less dangerous is unfair to the public. This sort of thing is not new, and it goes on in varying degrees all over the country.

When I was working at my college newspaper a hundred years ago, we had to jump on the locals for similar actions. The smallish college town didn't like their crime rates bloated by "promiscuous students", so the local hospital often sent victims of rape and violence to the neighboring larger city, hoping to keep the deed off the local city records.

Our weekly campus newspaper embarrassed the city into stopping this shameful practice.

Rape is rape is rape. Report it. Punish it. Let the public know. An informed public is part of the solution, not the problem.

Today's Press-Register editorial:

Tell public the truth about rape cases

APPARENTLY, WHEN it comes to crime and the Mobile Police Department,
there's no such thing as the public's right to know. All that matters is
what the department decides the public should know.

The
latest word on this front: The police department informs the public of
only a small percentage of rape cases. Furthermore, it's not clear why
Mobile's rape statistics are markedly lower than the stats in other
Alabama cities.

Consider that for 2009, Mobile police reported
just 37 forcible rapes to the FBI. That's less than a fifth of the
rapes reported by Birmingham police (198) and less than half of the
rapes reported by police departments in Huntsville (89) and Montgomery
(85).

Granted, Birmingham is Alabama's largest city, but with
about 229,400 people compared to Mobile's 192,800, it's not that much
larger. Montgomery is only slightly bigger than Mobile, and Huntsville
is smaller. So what gives?

Moreover, the news media and the
public in Mobile might not find out about any rapes until a suspect is
charged or a case is resolved. Without information, how can Mobilians be
confident in the police department as a guardian of the public's
safety?

Of the 37 rape cases reported last year to the FBI,
the Press-Register learned about a scant 13, in some instances after
receiving tips from readers.

In fact, two recent rape cases
were hidden from view until police arrested a man the department
described as a "dangerous predator." After the two victims had contacted
police -- and while the suspect was still at large -- the community
remained in the dark about the danger.

That's inexcusable.

The police department explains its silence on rapes by trotting out an archaic rationale.

Spokesman
Christopher Levy says that rape cases are often withheld from the
public because many are "domestic rapes" that "do not pose a threat to
the community."

He says a rape committed by a husband against
his wife, or a parent who sexually assaults his or her child, "although a
crime, is not considered a public matter." The department isn't saying
that it investigates "family" cases differently, but it does report them
differently.

By making that distinction, police give the
appearance of judging the victim and the merits of the accusation.
Besides, isn't all crime a "public matter"?

In another case,
police chose not to tell the media about the alleged rape of a woman at a
park on Chidester Avenue. Officer Levy's explanation was that there
weren't any witnesses or any "similar reports in that area." That, too,
is inexcusable.

If they are to feel safe and protected, the
people of Mobile need the full story about crime in their city. Sifting
through cases to pick out what the media and the public deserve to know
is a bad policy, and it needs to be changed.